Bhairahawa - Experience Terai

You might have gotten an impression that cave-man is all about mountains and that’s what he posts about most of the time. But let me start by saying that this post is different. In this one, I take to a place different. A place with fertile plain lands extending to eternity. A landscape that is hot and humid yet beautiful with vast agricultural land and boasting an awesome lifestyle.

Well not exactly a place but a geographical region that accumulates about 17% of our lands at south. To better understand it, the northern part of our country is mountains then comes the hills and the terai. And for this post I take you to a villages and lifestyles around Bhairahawa, a part of terai geography. Well, bhairahawa is a famous city and a gateway to Sidharthanagar(The Birthplace of Gautam Buddha and a great religious place for Buddhists) and a gateway to India border too. Well, these are the stuffs you can google and see yourselves. But what I am meaning to show you is different. So fasten your seatbelts for a pure terai experience.

Now that I am working full time in a company, I had a privilege of travelling by air to the place without bothering anyone. And I did so and let me start by showing off some pictures taken from our local plane while the Air Hostess was shouting Please sir switch off your electronics while on the plane.

These shots aren’t that great either as the flight was delayed and I got a seat where everything was obstructed by the right wing. Also, it was too dark already and the plane windows reflecting the internal lights obscured everything.

When you reach around terai landscape you will start noticing the vast plain lands and its awesome but I don’t have that particular shot for you as well(A Bummer!). And then we landed to be welcomed by this 30 degree celsius warm blanket even though it was 7 pm already.

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People here loved to sleep outside(they don’t any more but still some do) and this used to be the setting in almost every terai house when I was a child as it is too hot to sleep inside without AC or fans.

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When you visit any part of Terai in our country, you will notice that people still primarily use an atlas cycle. And we call those “बुडा साईकल” ( A cycle that an old man rides) but soon you will see every age groups riding the same in terai.

But before we start this let me summarize what we talk about in this post Lifestyle Vehicles Agriculture Plain Lands

But be aware, these points are only for those who are busy this weekend but have some time to surf through the pictures. But for all those who have a free weekend, I am expecting y’all to go through it all or I won’t be responsible for the fun you’re missing if you don’t.

Okay, let me continue with what we expect out of people riding this atlas bike: An old man

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Okay this one qualified too but he saw me shooting - So I hid for a while.

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But in terai our expectation of people who would ride this bike is totally betrayed. Everyone rides this!

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It has even become a family vehicle now! Hel-lyo, still expecting an old man, you foolish cave!

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One very interesting thing about modern terai is(Bhairahawa mostly is a modern terai), almost every manual man based Rickshaw’s have been replaced by these electric tempos and these aren’t that expensive to buy as well. Also I have heard that you can buy these on loans. If you happen to visit terai then don’t miss out on riding on these.

In my favor, I saw one of these electric one parking and I had a model for my shots.

Almost feeling like buying one of these, Don’t you?

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And you get different models of these to choose from. Well I chose something similar to this blue one below to get some air only to notice I was covered with dust when I was back from my ride. So be wise!

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Now where did I go riding this awesome tempo/rickshaw? To see the plain lands or should I say plain agricultural lands.

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To be particular, I went to the rice farming land and the down to the earth feeling that I got there was simply amazing. The smell of the the farm and a gentle morning breeze was so pleasant and healthy.

The farming lands extended to eternity and the varying colors among the farm was so beautiful to observe. Time and again you would see a heron fly out from the wilderness of the rice plants feeling alerted by our motion. I tried capturing them but I was unable to anticipate their random coming outs.

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Besides, moving my feet among these small pathways was amazing. I was kind of worried about the snakes but I guess they are afraid of us too and don’t show out when not necessary.

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And some abstract shots because I love shooting those.

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Well, those plain yellow ones were ready to be harvested and if you observed them closely the seeds were good enough too.

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Some patches were already harvested. They used to do this by hands but nowadays they use tractors too. After harvesting, depending on techniques, they beat the plants up and separate the seeds. I could see haystacks everywhere.

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This farmer was giving me a pose on the rice farm in front of the haystack in his bicycle. I feel this is the best shot one could take to reflect the lifestyle.

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And this tractor gave me a wild antique look too and it had to be shooted.

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I was unable to observe the actual harvesting process but surely did see one of them farmers drying the rice seeds to take it to the rice mill afterwards.

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This time, I had to take a short vacation and couldn’t experience much fun. But I did surely enjoy my visit to the farm and shooting to reflect the lifestyle. I hope that you enjoyed this too!

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Special thanks to my friends @redheadpei, @minismallholding and @himalayanwomb who really did encourage me with their kind words on my last post where I asked you all if I should do this long lifestyle based post of Terai. Also dear @melinda010100, see said I could tag her everywhere. And yeah! I finally did it!